


Allegiance

by Quicksilver_ink



Category: Suikoden III
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Loyalty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 16:26:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5935054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quicksilver_ink/pseuds/Quicksilver_ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I did not give my oath lightly, milady,” he said quietly. “As long as you need me, I will be here.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Allegiance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceQueenKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/gifts).



The first meeting Acting Captain Chris Lightfellow called in her new authority was, by necessity, brief. There was work to be done -- the wounded to be tended to, the dead to be retrieved, the missing to be tallied. Exhaustion and grief hung thick in the air, fogging the mind if not the eye. The shadows in the corners of Sir Galahad’s tent -- the Captain’s tent -- seemed to seep and slowly expand, as if they moved of their own accord instead of from the sway and flicker of the lamp. Chris’s squire, Louis, served the tea. It was weak and too hot and Salome burned his tongue on it, but it kept him alert.

“Thank you, everyone. I… suppose that is everything.” Chris’s voice was hoarse from use and, Salome expected, withheld tears. She glanced at him, uncertain, and he nodded confirmation. Yes, they were done. Yes, the authority to end the meeting was hers.

Dismissed, the other knights withdrew, with much groaning as they pulled stiff, weary bodies from chairs and stools and limped out the door. Salome meant to join them, hiding a wince as his hips protested his rising.

“Sir Salome. Ah, that is, Salome. May I have a moment?”

He sank gratefully back onto the folding chair, hard-seated and narrow as it was. “Milady?”

Percival, the last of the others to leave, glanced back. Chris made a shooing motion. He quirked a strained grin in response, and stepped out, letting the tent flap fall closed behind him.

Salome sat in patient silence, suspecting his new captain might want a moment to compose her thoughts. She was unnaturally still.  A clench of fists, a tremor in her legs or arms now that adrenaline had drained away and exertion claimed its toll -- those were to be expected. But she might have been a statue. 

Finally, she moved, taking a breath to speak. “I didn’t mean to make myself captain, you know.”

“I know, milady.” He’d been there, after all.

“By normal chain of command it should be you or Leo. Even Borus and Percival are more senior than I am.” She wasn’t looking at him, eyes fixed on some invisible point past the battered folding table.

“You took command in the battle and turned the tide.” Salome tried a reassuring smile, but the stretch of his lips felt wrong somehow, and he let it fall. “And after, we still chose to follow you.”

“I just… saw what needed to be done. And did it. That’s all.” 

Salome stayed quiet, in case more was forthcoming, but Chris sighed and sat back in her chair, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. Her eyes glinted overbright in the flickering lamplight.

Although only time linked, and separated, the tired woman in dusty armor before him to the small girl in black clothes, Salome thought of Sir Wyatt’s funeral.  She hadn’t held back tears then. But then again, she’d been a girl-child, and it was expected she would cry for her father. 

Now she was Captain, and she dared not weep where others would see.  

Leo might have shed tears in her place, or Borus raged against the Grasslanders who took the lives of Galahad and Pelize, and their naked emotion would have been taken for strength. But Chris was younger than both, and Zexen had not yet had a Lady Captain. 

Salome looked at his Captain, sitting still and straight-backed and tired across from him, the wavering shadows creeping toward her, and was struck by a sudden, aching clarity.

She could turn her pain to strength, but she didn’t need to suffer in order to be strong. And she’d thought _ he _ was someone she needed to hide that pain from. 

“I did not give my oath lightly, milady,” he said gently, trying to lift the weight of the silence that had stretched between them. “As long as you need me, I will be here, as sword and shield.”

Chris’s eyes went a little wide, and for a moment Salome wondered if he’d added to her burdens, rather than lightening them. The oath he’d sworn was not mere pretty words: if his death might save her life, it was a trade they were both obligated to make.

But then she smiled, tremulous but grateful. “Thank you, Salome.”


End file.
